MaxLinear MxL86211C 2.5G Ethernet PHY Transceiver IC
MaxLinear MxL86211C 2.5G Ethernet PHY Transceiver Integrated Circuit (IC) is a low-power device designed to deliver a cost-effective solution for networking devices such as routers, switches, and home gateways. The MaxLinear MxL86211C enables data transmission over Ethernet twisted-pair copper cables of Category 5 or higher and supports data rates of 2.5Gbps, 1Gbps, 100Mbps, and 10Mbps. Within the OSI model, the MxL86211C operates at Layer 1 as a physical media access device. It connects to a Layer 2 MAC device through a serial SGMII interface, supporting the same data rates. On the Ethernet twisted-pair side, it complies with IEEE 802.3 standards for: 2.5GBASE-T (Clause 126, NBASE-T), 1000BASE-T (Clause 40), 100BASE-TX (Clause 25), and 10BASE-Te (Clause 14). This interface includes Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE) to minimize idle power consumption and supports Wake-on-LAN for system-level power savings. A low-EMI line driver with integrated termination simplifies PCB design.
The SGMII interface adheres to IEEE 802.3 Clauses 36 and 27, as well as Cisco SGMII, and operates at the same data rates. For management, the device provides a standard MDIO interface (IEEE 802.3 Clauses 22 and 45) with clock speeds up to 25MHz, enabling access to MDIO/MMD registers for configuration and link status monitoring. Two vendor-specific register banks (VSPEC1 and VSPEC2) allow customization of LED behavior, SGMII settings, and Wake-on-LAN features. Additional configuration is possible via pin strapping.
The MxL86211C can drive up to three programmable LEDs, each configurable to indicate link speed and activity with multiple display schemes. This IC requires external power supplies of 3.3V and 0.97V and comes in a PG-VQFN-40 package (5mm x 5mm).
Features
- Multiple speed, single-port Ethernet PHY interface to the twisted pair cable supports:
- Ethernet modes and standards - 2.5GBASE-T (IEEE 802.3, NBASE-T), 1000BASE-T (IEEE 802.3), 100BASE-TX (IEEE 802.3), and 10BASE-Te (IEEE 802.3)
- Ethernet twisted pair copper cable of category CAT5 or higher
- Low EMI voltage mode line driver with integrated termination resistors
- Transformerless Ethernet for backplane applications
- Auto-negotiation (ANEG) with extended next page support
- Auto-MDIX and polarity correction
- Auto-downspeed (ADS)
- EEE and power-down mode
- Wake-on-LAN (WoL)
- SGMII SerDes interface supports:
- 1000BASE-X IEEE 802.3 Clause 36 and 37
- Cisco Serial-GMII specification operating at 1.25Gbaud/s
- Extension of 1000BASE-X and Cisco Serial-GMII to achieve 3.125Gbaud/s by overclocking the SerDes to support the 2.5Gbit/s data rate
- Clock and Data Recovery (CDR)
- Management interface supports the communication between the Station Management (acronym “STA” per IEEE 802.3) and the MxL86211C using:
- An MDIO slave interface that provides access to the standard registers in the MMD as described in IEEE 802.3 Clause 22 and Clause 45, and listed in Chapter 5
- An MDIO interface clock of up to 25MHz
- MDIO interface with 1.8V and 3.3V levels are supported
- 3x MDIO message frame types as described in IEEE 802.3 - Clause 22, Clause 22 Extended, Clause 45
- LED interface supports:
- Up to 3x LEDs
- Single color LEDs
- Connection of the LED to ground or 3.3V
- Several LED indication schemes (link/activity, link speed)
- Configuration of LED indication via MDIO registers
- Control of LED brightness via software driver API
- Alternative configuration of LED pins as GPIO for custom indication
- Supports 2x external interrupts (EXINT0 and EXINT1) - configurable as input from, or output to an external controller
- Clocking features
- 25MHz crystal operation
- Supports 2x general-purpose clock pins (GPC1 and GPC2) shared with the GPIO
- Test features
- Cable diagnostics - cable open/short detection and cable length estimation
- UART
- Temperature sensor (warning, interrupt, reset, and auto-downspeed)
- Dynamic voltage scaling
- FW upgrade over MDIO
- Low power mode to reduce the energy consumption when the Ethernet cable is unplugged, with automatic wake-up upon energy detection from the cable
- 1.71V to 3.46V supply voltage range
- Power supply
- 3.3V power supply
- 0.97V power supply
- 0°C to +70°C operating temperature range
- Single row 5mm x 5mm PG-VQFN-40 package
Applications
- Enterprise networking equipment
- Switches
- Routers
- Gateways
- Broadband access equipment
- Optical Network Terminals (ONT)
- Optical Line Terminals (OLT)
- Cable modems
- Wireless infrastructures
- Small cells
- Base stations
- Industrial and embedded systems
- Industrial Ethernet devices
- Embedded networking modules
- Consumer electronics
- Set-top boxes
- Smart TVs
- Data center and cloud infrastructures
- Servers
- Storage systems
Block Diagram
External Interface Overview
